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BBC News
20-04-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
'More than a barman': Meet the Bafta-nominated pub landlord
The next time you hear someone shouting "last orders" at your local pub, listen many people in Sneinton, Nottingham, John Blyth is the friendly face at The King Billy who has been pouring them pints for more than a it's his voice that got him a Bafta Goodness You're Here!, which features his voice, also won the best British game at a ceremony in London earlier this month. Mr Blyth provided the voice of Big Ron, a loud and loveable pie salesman in the adventure video game. His portrayal saw him nominated for the best performer in the supporting role cartoon-esque title was released in August and created by Will Todd and James Carbutt, founders of developer Coal Supper. Before taking over The King Billy in 2014, Mr Blyth had a background in gaming journalism and podcasting. But running a busy pub meant putting that world to one side until it came calling again in a very unexpected voice on the Regular Features podcast caught the ears of games developers at Coal Supper Studios, who reached out for Mr Blyth's vocals."It was the most pleasant surprise, especially when I saw the games they were making," he recalls."As soon as I saw the demo for Thank Goodness You're Here!, I thought this was the most charming thing in the world and I want to be part of it."In the game, players control a tiny, silent character through the streets of Barnsworth and tackle a series of surreal odd-jobs given to them by local Blyth provides the deep tones of Big Ron - a loud, eccentric pie salesman who runs the fictional shop Big Ron's Big Pies."The conversation was basically them asking me and me snapping their hand off," the 51-year-old said. "I thought I'd left games behind me when I stopped with gaming journalism but to be part of this side of it was an absolute pleasure." Mr Blyth is mainly used to talking about video games from a journalistic and critic standpoint and says it was surreal being part of the creative process for a game. "I sent them a few different reads of the lines they gave me. They chose the way they wanted it to sound and so I ran with that," he added."I'm not a trained voice actor and I kept veering off a lot, so I had a reactivation phrase to get me back on track, which was shouting 'Big Ron's Big Pies'."So I was just shouting that in-between takes." 'More than a barman' Back at The King Billy, Mr Blyth says behind every beer poured and glass collected, there is a member of staff who has a whole spectrum of different talents."In any pub you go into, you scratch the surface of the staff and you'll find a lot of hidden talent with people who can do things you don't expect them to do". While Mr Blyth has no plans to pursue a full-time career in voice acting, he says he is open to other projects while keeping the drinks flowing at the pub."It's always nice to have more than one thing going on in your life," he added."A pub can inflate to fill every aspect of your life, and if you let it, it can become your everything."And to have that little thing on the side to keep the creativity ticking over is nice and makes you feel a bit more rounded as a person rather than just the jovial barman."While he did not bring the title for the best performer home, Mr Blyth says the experience is something he now casually drops in conversations."I'm glad I didn't win because it stops it going to my head," he added."[It was] great to get my hopes up and have them dashed to keep my feet on the ground, although I can't not tell people that I was nominated for a Bafta. That's all I was saying for a week."
Yahoo
08-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Astro Bot sweeps Bafta Game Awards with five wins
PlayStation game Astro Bot was the big winner at the 21st Bafta Game Awards, picking up five awards, including best game. The platform game, which was released to mark PlayStation's 30th anniversary, also picked up the awards for animation, audio achievement, family and game design. British game Still Wakes the Deep, a horror game set on a Scottish drilling platform, won three awards – new intellectual property, performer in a leading role for Alec Newman and performer in a supporting role for Karen Dunbar. The winner of the 2025 BAFTA for British Game is…Thank Goodness You're Here! 🎮 #BAFTAGamesAwards — BAFTA Games (@BAFTAGames) April 8, 2025 Elsewhere, independent Yorkshire studio Coal Supper's Thank Goodness You're Here! won the award for British Game and Senua's Saga: Hellblade II, which had led the field with 11 nominations, won the technical achievement award. Poker-themed Balatro won the award for debut game. There were also two wins for Helldivers 2, while Metaphor: Refantazio won the prize for narrative and Tales of Kenzera: Zau won the game beyond entertainment award. Meanwhile, the Bafta Fellowship was awarded to composer Yoko Shimomura, in recognition of her contribution to music in video games, which has included her work on the Kingdom Hearts series.
Forbes
08-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
2025 BAFTA Games Awards Winners: ‘Astro Bot' Wins Deserved GOTY
'Astro Bot' took home five BAFTA Games Awards, including Best Game. Astro Bot dominated the 2025 BAFTA Games Awards, claiming Game of The Year along with four more gongs for Audio Achievement, Family, Animation, and Game Design. Anyone who's played Astro Bot will be in no way surprised, despite strong competition, in another typically BAFTA affair with surprises along the way. Last year, Baldur's Gate 3 unsurprisingly led both the nominations (11) and awards won (4); in 2025, the top nominee was a bit more of a shock, as local favorite Senua's Saga: Hellblade II was the frontrunner (also with 11), albeit missing out on the all-important Game of the Year shortlisting. In the end, Hellblade II took home just one BAFTA for Technical Achievement. Still Wakes the Deep came second with three BAFTAs — New Intellectual Property, and both Performers in Supporting and Leading Roles — a particular high point being Karen Dunbar, the actor behind Finlay who was, delightfully, the most Scottish person on the internet tonight, saying 'I'm not even an actor, I'm a gynecologist!' Even with six nominations, Black Myth: Wukong got nothing. Thank Goodness You're Here!, the hometown fave, grabbed just one award from seven, even though it felt like a contender in every one of its categories. It's worth noting just how much that sole trophy meant to its developers at Coal Supper; they're an incredible bunch, and they deserve every success in the future. Will Todd and James Carbutt rightfully received a BAFTA for 'Thank Goodness You're Here!'. FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™ Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase Pinpoint By Linkedin Guess The Category Queens By Linkedin Crown Each Region Crossclimb By Linkedin Unlock A Trivia Ladder Sadly, Balatro didn't get its dues; if it was going to win Game of the Year anywhere, it was the BAFTAs. Just look at Vampire Survivors, which beat God of War Ragnarök to the top gong in 2023, but also fairly picked up tonight's award for Evolving Game. After the first award Balatro was nominated for — New Intellectual Property — went to Still Wakes the Deep, winning dev The Chinese Room admitted they thought Balatro had it in the bag. Despite all this, Balatro had the biggest laugh of the night when the poker-based roguelike (and my own GOTY) collected its sole award for Debut Game. Ben Starr, who's played the part of Jimbo the Joker on behalf of the famously public-averse solo dev LocalThunk, read the funniest speech of the night, saying how 'he has shoes made of gold and he thanks you for making him that way.' Most importantly, he ended the speech saying: 'Oh, and play more independent games like Animal Well, they are the lifeblood of this industry and they deserve your respect.' The BAFTA Games Awards was hosted for the second year in a row by comedian Phil Wang, who compared himself to the Nintendo Switch 2 — 'not noticeably better, but I did charge a lot more this time' — but only after the ceremony opened with the year's industry highlights powered by the (literally) golden guitar skills of Pendulum star Peredur ap Gwynedd, who played a selection of the band's hits that featured in video games. Other highlights included Tales of Kenzera: Zau winning Game Beyond Entertainment, even though Surgent Studios faced major and heartbreaking circumstances after the title's launch; nerd-turned-hunk Matthew Lewis, A.K.A. Neville Longbottom, rocking up to present the BAFTA for Game Design; and deserving BAFTA Fellowship Award-winning Yoko Shimomura's translator, who I hope was being paid by the hour. Plenty of other smaller titles deservedly got their moments in the sun: Tiny Glade, The Plucky Squire, Little Kitty, Big City, Botany Manor, Paper Trail, A Highland Song, and Pacific Drive. Even triple-As were rightly lauded; the clip packages for both Astro Bot and Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 only reminded everyone of how varied and brilliant both games were. There were a couple of other nice surprises, namely Metaphor: ReFantazio claiming the Narrative award in the face of big local competition, and Neva's much-deserved win for Artistic Achievement. Five awards: Astro BotThree: Still Wakes the DeepTwo: Helldivers 2One: Senua's Saga: Hellblade II, Tales of Kenzera: Zau, Thank Goodness You're Here!, Metaphor: ReFantazio, Vampire Survivors, Neva, Balatro Read the full list of 2025 BAFTA Games Awards nominees on the organization's website.
The Guardian
27-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
These games were indie smash hits – but what happened next?
It is now more or less impossible to put a precise figure on the number of video games released each year. According to data published by the digital store Steam, almost 19,000 titles were released in 2024 – and that's just on one platform. Hundreds more arrived on consoles and smartphones. In some ways this is the positive sign of a vibrant industry, but how on earth does a new project get noticed? When Triple A titles with multimillion dollar marketing budgets are finding it hard to gain attention (disappointing sales have been reported for Dragon Age: The Veilguard, the Final Fantasy VII remakes and EA Sports FC), what chance is there for a small team to break out? And yet it does happen. Last year's surprise hit Balatro has shifted more than 5m copies. Complex medieval strategy title Manor Lords sold 1m copies during its launch weekend. But what awaits a small developer after they achieve success? And what does success even mean in a continuously evolving industry? James Carbutt and Will Todd of Coal Supper are still trying to make sense of it. Their acerbic satire Thank Goodness You're Here!, in which players slap their way through bizarre quotidian scenarios in the fictional humble northern town of Barnsworth, is now an award-winning game. 'It's just not registered as a success in my head at all,' says Carbutt. 'The numbers are going up on screen, and there have been YouTube playthroughs and some erotic fan art. Beyond that, it won't register.' After spending three years working on the project, the pair now find themselves in the confusing glare of the spotlight, fielding questions about what's next. 'It's horrible,' Carbutt jokes. 'But I don't think we feel any sort of second-album syndrome. The space it gives you to be a bit introspective about what you want to do next is the interesting quirk of a successful indie game.' Veteran indie developer Gabe Cuzzillo (Ape Out, Baby Steps) offered them sage wisdom. 'He spoke about how you should focus not just on making something good – because how do you quantify that, it's amorphous?' says Todd. 'Instead we should look at what it is we want to explore and judge success intrinsically, based on whether we explored that thing. The pressure of speed to market doesn't apply to us, because it's never going to be possible to crank something out in six months to chase success anyway. It's more like, in the wake of this being received well, what's the next thing we want to explore? That's something we're interrogating at the moment.' Australian developer Grace Bruxner has also redefined success after leaving behind a trilogy of Frog Detective games: bite-size adventures co-developed with Thomas Bowker that quickly became cult indie hits. 'Success in games has always been a bit of a lie, a bit of an illusion,' she says, pointing to typical markers such as cultural impact, player numbers and financial gain. 'My measure of success is: did I make something I'm proud of, and has it impacted my life and other people's lives in a positive way? And yes, it did, so thumbs up.' Bruxner began working on the series during her final year at university as an experiment, to see whether she could produce a commercial game. After a relatively breezy first outing, the second Frog Detective game demanded that Bruxner and Bowker lock in, and spend most of their time on the project. By the third instalment, the hard work had paid off, though the pressure had begun to take its toll. Throw in the pandemic, as well as mental and physical health issues, and Bruxner was ready to take a break. 'I wasn't grinding super hard, but I also wasn't having a great time,' she says. 'It just was really nice to make that choice to stop.' Sign up to Pushing Buttons Keza MacDonald's weekly look at the world of gaming after newsletter promotion Bruxner still has game ideas swirling in the back of her head, but she wanted to escape the endless production cycle that has swallowed up many of her peers, regardless of mounting exhaustion or burnout. 'It's not universal advice,' she says, 'but if you're a solo dev or a really small team, I don't think there's any shame in leaving it there. Unless you love making games. I'm not sure I love making games. I was quite young when we released the first Frog Detective, so it was like, 'This is my entire identity for life. I don't know how to be a separate person from that.' Three years after the series' swan song, she is on indefinite hiatus, exploring alternative creative paths – such as pottery. 'I can't imagine making games, because of the expectations on me as a creator,' she explains. 'I don't even know where I would go from here.' Bruxner has been surprised by her ability to sustain herself on the modest amount of money provided by Frog Detective. 'If your game continues to have a tail, and you can budget properly and live within your means, it is possible to have a passive income that isn't tied to being a horrible landlord,' she explains. Even so, she knows how taboo it can be to talk plainly about money, especially in creative circles like the indie game scene. 'I have the free time to chill and decide what I want to do, but I assume at some point I'll probably need to have a career again. My biggest question is will this money last forever? Probably not, and then what happens when it runs out? I don't know.' It may seem as though more indies than ever have broken into the spotlight in recent years. But enduring games industry turbulence has made finding financial support for follow-ups and debuts more complicated. 'The elephant in the room is everything that's happened over the past couple of years, with mass layoffs, studio closures and evaporating funding opportunities,' explains AP Thomson, a developer of the forthcoming indie Consume Me with fellow NYU Game Center graduate Jenny Jiao Hsia. 'Before that, there was a pretty major change around the mid-2010s when indie publishers and funders started rising in prominence. Everything we've heard suggests that the same opportunities no longer exist or are incredibly limited.' Consume Me, the duo's coming-of-age scheduling RPG doesn't have a release date but has already been nominated for five gongs at the Independent Games Festival awards. As such, Jiao Hsia and Thomson are already under pressure to decide their next endeavour. 'Multiple people have told us we should be moving forward once it launches,' says Thomson. Even with growing expectations, the pair aren't keen to get ahead of themselves. 'Everything we've heard suggests that now is really not a great time to be pitching, so we're going to focus our energy on the launch and then read the temperature of the room after that,' Thomson adds. 'I'm looking forward to finding enjoyment in making art again, instead of feeling like I have to show up to a job I never applied to,' explains Jiao Hsia. 'The idea of making art for fun, without worrying about making money off it, is something I can't wait to do.'
